Iran Press/ Middle East: Polling stations opened across Bahrain at 8 am, local time, and will remain open until 8 pm for 365,467 eligible voters to cast their ballots in the fifth quadrennial parliamentary and municipal elections since 2002.
Voters will elect the 40 members of the Council of Representatives and the 30 members of the municipal councils for the 2018-2022 term, Iran Press reported
They will cast their ballots in the 40 constituency polling stations and in the 14 general polling centres spread across the Kingdom.
506 candidates are running in Bahrain parliamentary elections.
It expects a higher voter turnout than in 2014, which it put at 53 percent.
Polling stations across Bahrain opened on Saturday despite the fact that Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Nov. 20, that Bahrain has failed to provide conditions for fair and free voting in the upcoming parliamentary elections in the country.
HRW also cited the arrest of former Bahraini lawmaker Ali Rashed al-Sheeri and the life sentence handed to opposition leader Sheikh Ali Salman as the latest examples of the Al Khalifah regime’s crackdown on peaceful dissent.
Additionally, HRW complained about the widespread ill treatment of Bahraini detainees, the forcible closure of the independent al-Wasat newspaper and the dissolution of all opposition political groups, including the National Democratic Action Society (Wa’ad) and the al-Wefaq National Islamic Society.
On Nov. 05, amnesty International criticized Bahraini Appeal Court verdict against prominent Bahraini Shia cleric and two other senior opposition members.
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A group of Bahraini clerics denounced the planned parliamentary elections as “a sham.”
They have also been complaining against widespread discrimination against the Shia majority in the country.
Manama has responded to the demonstrations with an iron fist. The authorities have detained rights campaigners, broken up major opposition political parties, revoked the nationality of several pro-democracy activists, and deported those left stateless.
On March 5, 2017, Bahrain’s parliament approved the trial of civilians at military tribunals in a measure blasted by human rights campaigners as being tantamount to imposition of an undeclared martial law countrywide.
Bahraini monarch King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifah ratified the constitutional amendment on April 3 last year.
Bahraini people have been holding peaceful protest rallies regularly since February 2011, demanding that the Al Khalifah family relinquish power and let a just system representing all Bahrainis be established. 101/201
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